What do you think?
Rate this book
Red State Mars
Not yet published
Expected 26 May 26A sweeping epic of Mars’s fight for freedom—an unforgettable saga of war, family, and civilization on the red frontier.For generations, the Newcastles, Mackenzies, Atkinses, Hyltons, and Hollinses have endured the hard red soil of Mars—surviving by individual grit, intense family loyalty, and free market trade. Scarred by World War III and Earth’s long, violent aftermath, they built farms, raised domes, forged alliances, and carried old grudges to a new world. Together, the Martians have forged a frontier society that is complex, ornery, and rooted in the freedom of the Texas soil from which many of the clans sprang.
Trade with the nearby Chinese enclaves brought prosperity for a time. But as Beijing’s reach lengthens, trade becomes tribute—and tribute becomes force.
When Chinese armored columns grind across Karl’s Ramp and convoys are torn apart in the Chaos, Mars is plunged into war. Robinson City’s dome falls in fire and blood. The Burrows holds out under siege until supply convoys break through beneath burning skies. At Lowell and Meltwater, city shields collapse and the red Martian soil melts and flows like blood as the Martian plains are seared with plasma fire.
The clans face an empire pressing down from above and rivalries tearing them apart from within. Senators brawl in council halls, mobs surge through the streets, and old feuds erupt—even on the football field. Out of devastation, a fragile coalition is uneasy, volatile, but fierce enough to strike back. Freightliners become fortresses. Drones become weapons. Family honor hardens into resistance.
From isolated domes to the vast Martian plains to the black sky above, war sparks into revolution and a desperate struggle to forge a nation on an alien world men now call home.
A vast chronicle of clans and civilizations, of families too proud to yield, too divided to trust, and too determined to be ruled.
Trade with the nearby Chinese enclaves brought prosperity for a time. But as Beijing’s reach lengthens, trade becomes tribute—and tribute becomes force.
When Chinese armored columns grind across Karl’s Ramp and convoys are torn apart in the Chaos, Mars is plunged into war. Robinson City’s dome falls in fire and blood. The Burrows holds out under siege until supply convoys break through beneath burning skies. At Lowell and Meltwater, city shields collapse and the red Martian soil melts and flows like blood as the Martian plains are seared with plasma fire.
The clans face an empire pressing down from above and rivalries tearing them apart from within. Senators brawl in council halls, mobs surge through the streets, and old feuds erupt—even on the football field. Out of devastation, a fragile coalition is uneasy, volatile, but fierce enough to strike back. Freightliners become fortresses. Drones become weapons. Family honor hardens into resistance.
From isolated domes to the vast Martian plains to the black sky above, war sparks into revolution and a desperate struggle to forge a nation on an alien world men now call home.
A vast chronicle of clans and civilizations, of families too proud to yield, too divided to trust, and too determined to be ruled.
- GenresScience Fiction
628 pages, Kindle Edition
Expected publication May 26, 2026
37 people want to read
About the author
Travis J.I. Corcoran
14 books98 followersTravis J I Corcoran is a Catholic anarcho-capitalist, a software engineer, and a business owner. He is an amateur at farming, wood turning, blacksmithing, cooking, throwing ceramic pots, and a few other things.
He lives on a 50 acre farm in New Hampshire with his wife, dogs, livestock, and a variety of lathes and milling machines.
Travis has had non-fiction articles published in several national magazines including Dragon, Make, and Fine Homebuilding.
The Powers of the Earth is his first novel.
He lives on a 50 acre farm in New Hampshire with his wife, dogs, livestock, and a variety of lathes and milling machines.
Travis has had non-fiction articles published in several national magazines including Dragon, Make, and Fine Homebuilding.
The Powers of the Earth is his first novel.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
DISCLOSURE: I received a complimentary Advance Reader Copy of Travis J.I. Corcoran’s Red State Mars from the publisher for review purposes. Other than committing to post a review I made no other representation as to what I would say.
Red State Mars is a smart, sophisticated, and thoroughly satisfying novel that delivers realistic action and intelligent world-building (I would actually say “culture-building”). Highly recommended for fans of hard military SF, frontier epics, and thoughtful colonization stories.
Some readers will come to Red State Mars aware that it is the debut release from Ark Press — a new publisher with financial backing from Peter Thiel’s investment group — and of its’ authors’ sometimes controversial political profile. However, anyone expecting partisan preaching, culture-war gotchas, or thinly veiled commentary on 2020s American politics will be grossly disappointed. The novel steadfastly avoids hitting the reader over the head with contemporary hot-button issues or simplistic “TEAM RED good / TEAM BLUE bad” framing. Instead, Corcoran explores bigger, more enduring themes: the pioneer spirit of self-reliant families carving out a free society on a hostile frontier; the friction and strength of clan loyalties; the messy realities of democratic self-governance under pressure; and the eternal struggle between individual liberty and distant authoritarian power. The result feels like classic frontier literature and hard military SF in the tradition of Heinlein, Pournelle, or Michener — timeless and big-picture rather than ripped from today’s headlines.
Given recency bias and the success of the film, I believe many reviewers will instinctively reach for Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary as a comparison for this book, but the far closer parallel is actually Weir’s earlier novel The Martian (also a successful movie). Both The Martian and Red State Mars are rooted in the same gritty, boots-in-the-regolith reality of human beings simply trying to exist on a lethally inhospitable Mars, with the same meticulous planetary science and engineering tension. Corcoran simply expands that lens into an epic multi-generational clan saga with political depth and large-scale conflict.
As for the plot: For generations, the Newcastle, Mackenzie, Atkins, Hylton, and Hollins clans have endured the hard red soil of Mars — surviving by individual grit, intense family loyalty, and free-market trade. When trade with nearby Chinese enclaves turns into tribute and then outright invasion, Mars is plunged into war. What follows is a sweeping saga of domes under siege, freightliners turned into fortresses, Senate brawls, desperate space battles, and a fragile coalition fighting for self-determination.
One of the standout moments for me was Corcoran’s deep-dive aside on the ancient history of water on Mars — four billion years of planetary geology, lost oceans, solar wind stripping, and buried ice reserves — that unfolds right in the middle of the Battle of Meltwater. Far from feeling like a lecture, it’s a riveting, perfectly timed piece of hard-SF world-building that directly fuels the Martians’ ingenious victory. It reminded me strongly of the late Dan Simmons, whose info-dumps on everything from Arctic expedition history in The Terror to literary, philosophical, and technological layers in the Hyperion Cantos I’ve always loved. Like Simmons, Corcoran doesn’t just dump facts — he weaves well-researched science and history into the narrative so it feels alive, purposeful, and essential to the story.
Corcoran’s portrayal of the Atkins family — the rowdy, hard-drinking, rock-crawling, loose-cannon cousins whose hot-headed independence keeps testing (and ultimately strengthening) the Martian clans — brought James Webb’s Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America to mind every single time they appeared. The Atkinses feel like living, breathing descendants of that exact same ornery, “born fighting” Scots-Irish stock transplanted to the domes and red plains of Mars.
One of the smartest choices Corcoran makes is the complete absence of any non-human aliens. By keeping the focus entirely on human characters, cultures, and politics, the stakes feel immediate, plausible, and emotionally resonant — more like a 22nd-century Western than typical space opera.
Finally, the author’s afterword on how the novel came to exist and his transparency as to sources and inspiration was just terrific. I always appreciate getting clues and suggestions as to books I might be interested in adding to my “to read” stack.
A very strong start for Ark Press. And Corcoran is an author who I will look to read more from.
Red State Mars is a smart, sophisticated, and thoroughly satisfying novel that delivers realistic action and intelligent world-building (I would actually say “culture-building”). Highly recommended for fans of hard military SF, frontier epics, and thoughtful colonization stories.
Some readers will come to Red State Mars aware that it is the debut release from Ark Press — a new publisher with financial backing from Peter Thiel’s investment group — and of its’ authors’ sometimes controversial political profile. However, anyone expecting partisan preaching, culture-war gotchas, or thinly veiled commentary on 2020s American politics will be grossly disappointed. The novel steadfastly avoids hitting the reader over the head with contemporary hot-button issues or simplistic “TEAM RED good / TEAM BLUE bad” framing. Instead, Corcoran explores bigger, more enduring themes: the pioneer spirit of self-reliant families carving out a free society on a hostile frontier; the friction and strength of clan loyalties; the messy realities of democratic self-governance under pressure; and the eternal struggle between individual liberty and distant authoritarian power. The result feels like classic frontier literature and hard military SF in the tradition of Heinlein, Pournelle, or Michener — timeless and big-picture rather than ripped from today’s headlines.
Given recency bias and the success of the film, I believe many reviewers will instinctively reach for Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary as a comparison for this book, but the far closer parallel is actually Weir’s earlier novel The Martian (also a successful movie). Both The Martian and Red State Mars are rooted in the same gritty, boots-in-the-regolith reality of human beings simply trying to exist on a lethally inhospitable Mars, with the same meticulous planetary science and engineering tension. Corcoran simply expands that lens into an epic multi-generational clan saga with political depth and large-scale conflict.
As for the plot: For generations, the Newcastle, Mackenzie, Atkins, Hylton, and Hollins clans have endured the hard red soil of Mars — surviving by individual grit, intense family loyalty, and free-market trade. When trade with nearby Chinese enclaves turns into tribute and then outright invasion, Mars is plunged into war. What follows is a sweeping saga of domes under siege, freightliners turned into fortresses, Senate brawls, desperate space battles, and a fragile coalition fighting for self-determination.
One of the standout moments for me was Corcoran’s deep-dive aside on the ancient history of water on Mars — four billion years of planetary geology, lost oceans, solar wind stripping, and buried ice reserves — that unfolds right in the middle of the Battle of Meltwater. Far from feeling like a lecture, it’s a riveting, perfectly timed piece of hard-SF world-building that directly fuels the Martians’ ingenious victory. It reminded me strongly of the late Dan Simmons, whose info-dumps on everything from Arctic expedition history in The Terror to literary, philosophical, and technological layers in the Hyperion Cantos I’ve always loved. Like Simmons, Corcoran doesn’t just dump facts — he weaves well-researched science and history into the narrative so it feels alive, purposeful, and essential to the story.
Corcoran’s portrayal of the Atkins family — the rowdy, hard-drinking, rock-crawling, loose-cannon cousins whose hot-headed independence keeps testing (and ultimately strengthening) the Martian clans — brought James Webb’s Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America to mind every single time they appeared. The Atkinses feel like living, breathing descendants of that exact same ornery, “born fighting” Scots-Irish stock transplanted to the domes and red plains of Mars.
One of the smartest choices Corcoran makes is the complete absence of any non-human aliens. By keeping the focus entirely on human characters, cultures, and politics, the stakes feel immediate, plausible, and emotionally resonant — more like a 22nd-century Western than typical space opera.
Finally, the author’s afterword on how the novel came to exist and his transparency as to sources and inspiration was just terrific. I always appreciate getting clues and suggestions as to books I might be interested in adding to my “to read” stack.
A very strong start for Ark Press. And Corcoran is an author who I will look to read more from.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Red State Mars is the best new science fiction book I’ve read since Project Hail Mary, and not for lack of trying. I’ve searched desperately for years for an alternative from the industrial slurry extruded by Tor, Daw, and Ace. Yes, I have found a few indie gems, such as Corcoran’s Aristillus books, which describe how a single breakthrough technology can threaten even the most entrenched of powers. They were good books, but now Corcoran has an editor. This, Ark Press’s first book, is beautifully polished.
Red State Mars follows the formation of the first Martian state, founded by a coalition of five Texan clans, which themselves coalesced in the anarchic aftermath of World War III. Now, after three generations of peace, they find themselves in another violent Turning, as foretold by Strauss and Howe. In response to the ever-escalating demands of the technocratic eugenicists of the Unitary Sovereign State of China, the Martian clans must put their differences aside and fight together.
Corcoran shows us the war through the eyes of three men: Will, a teenage boy with a dog who goes on Heinleinian adventures as he becomes a soldier; his nerdy uncle Brian, who wins the love of a good woman through feats of engineering; and his father, Jim, who is so used to leadership he’s gone soft, and is forced to admit that even he is not done growing up. Corcoran has been paying attention to many Thanksgiving-table arguments.
In the afterword, the author says he planned Red State Mars as a family saga, but that isn’t how it turned out. Under the guidance of editor Tony Daniel, the older generation’s stories were moved to a separate novella, resulting in a tighter, quicker-launching book. I actually think they could have gone further in this direction and brought more out of Will, Brian, and Jim, but that’s a quibble.
Here’s another: there were some dropped threads. What happened to the young Mormon guy with the wire-rimmed glasses? Why did they use the tainted feedstock? Maybe I missed his answers, but I got the impression that Corcoran had too many balls in the air, and dropped some.
Anyway, the battle scenes were exciting, suspenseful, and technical in the best tradition of Clive Cussler. Satellites, molten salt cooling systems, and missiles all get their chance in the point-of-view spotlight. LLMs are ubiquitous in the 22nd century, where every armored fighting vehicle quotes doctrine and every valve has a opinion. It makes sense for the machines’ voice to be close third person.
As in the Aristillus books, Corcoran is conscientious with his future technology. There’ve been incremental advances in AI, 3D printing, and genetic engineering, but there’s just one black swan: the force field generator. There were chapters of Red State Mars where I alternated between reading about space-explosions and furiously imagining force field tactics. Can you batter through a force field? Yes. Can you reshape it at will? Yes. Can you thrust or see through it? No. But you can flick it on and off rapidly in sync with your cameras or engines. Of course, if you do that, weapons can sneak in. Beautiful stuff. And don’t get me started on what impermeable, immaterial walls mean for nuclear fusion. Leave that up to Corcoran.
There’s quite a lot of town-hall politicking, which was gripping even compared to the coming-of-age-through-microgravity-combat scenes. I was never more emotional a reader than during those debates. Stop interrupting each other!
This is a book about people’s love and loyalty to a place and each other. It gives us what a good story should: a perspective on ourselves, and a view of where we might go from here.
I am delighted, inspired, and even hopeful having read this book. It seized me, it pushed me, it scintillates with the possibilities of the future. It’s exactly the sort of story I couldn’t find for a bleak, censorious decade. And it’s only Ark Press’s first. May there be many, many more.
Red State Mars follows the formation of the first Martian state, founded by a coalition of five Texan clans, which themselves coalesced in the anarchic aftermath of World War III. Now, after three generations of peace, they find themselves in another violent Turning, as foretold by Strauss and Howe. In response to the ever-escalating demands of the technocratic eugenicists of the Unitary Sovereign State of China, the Martian clans must put their differences aside and fight together.
Corcoran shows us the war through the eyes of three men: Will, a teenage boy with a dog who goes on Heinleinian adventures as he becomes a soldier; his nerdy uncle Brian, who wins the love of a good woman through feats of engineering; and his father, Jim, who is so used to leadership he’s gone soft, and is forced to admit that even he is not done growing up. Corcoran has been paying attention to many Thanksgiving-table arguments.
In the afterword, the author says he planned Red State Mars as a family saga, but that isn’t how it turned out. Under the guidance of editor Tony Daniel, the older generation’s stories were moved to a separate novella, resulting in a tighter, quicker-launching book. I actually think they could have gone further in this direction and brought more out of Will, Brian, and Jim, but that’s a quibble.
Here’s another: there were some dropped threads. What happened to the young Mormon guy with the wire-rimmed glasses? Why did they use the tainted feedstock? Maybe I missed his answers, but I got the impression that Corcoran had too many balls in the air, and dropped some.
Anyway, the battle scenes were exciting, suspenseful, and technical in the best tradition of Clive Cussler. Satellites, molten salt cooling systems, and missiles all get their chance in the point-of-view spotlight. LLMs are ubiquitous in the 22nd century, where every armored fighting vehicle quotes doctrine and every valve has a opinion. It makes sense for the machines’ voice to be close third person.
As in the Aristillus books, Corcoran is conscientious with his future technology. There’ve been incremental advances in AI, 3D printing, and genetic engineering, but there’s just one black swan: the force field generator. There were chapters of Red State Mars where I alternated between reading about space-explosions and furiously imagining force field tactics. Can you batter through a force field? Yes. Can you reshape it at will? Yes. Can you thrust or see through it? No. But you can flick it on and off rapidly in sync with your cameras or engines. Of course, if you do that, weapons can sneak in. Beautiful stuff. And don’t get me started on what impermeable, immaterial walls mean for nuclear fusion. Leave that up to Corcoran.
There’s quite a lot of town-hall politicking, which was gripping even compared to the coming-of-age-through-microgravity-combat scenes. I was never more emotional a reader than during those debates. Stop interrupting each other!
This is a book about people’s love and loyalty to a place and each other. It gives us what a good story should: a perspective on ourselves, and a view of where we might go from here.
I am delighted, inspired, and even hopeful having read this book. It seized me, it pushed me, it scintillates with the possibilities of the future. It’s exactly the sort of story I couldn’t find for a bleak, censorious decade. And it’s only Ark Press’s first. May there be many, many more.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Red State Mars is like the lovechild of Heinlein, Andy Weir, and Neal Stephenson in the best way possible. It's equal parts near-future sci-fi, military sci-fi, and character drama, with a gripping plot that never feels like it overstayed its welcome.
Much like Corcoran's earlier works, the Aristillus stories, the science is laid out in a plausible way without being dry, adding a level of reality that brought me in rather than making my eyes glaze over. Most importantly, the world of Red State Mars felt lived in, where you can see why the characters are the way that they are, where the world is so unlike our own, but the motivations and reasons for their culture makes perfect sense.
RSM is about pioneers trying to carve out a living on the edge of what is humanly possible, namely the lifeless planet of Mars. Then an outside force decides to upset the delicate balance of disparate people, leading to possible calamity or to triumph. The lives of the families of Mars are beset on all sides by a much more powerful foe, who wishes for total hegemonic domination of the planet.
This book is great if you like underdog stories of smart, competent people rising to the occasion and overcoming a seemingly unstoppable enemy.
Much like Corcoran's earlier works, the Aristillus stories, the science is laid out in a plausible way without being dry, adding a level of reality that brought me in rather than making my eyes glaze over. Most importantly, the world of Red State Mars felt lived in, where you can see why the characters are the way that they are, where the world is so unlike our own, but the motivations and reasons for their culture makes perfect sense.
RSM is about pioneers trying to carve out a living on the edge of what is humanly possible, namely the lifeless planet of Mars. Then an outside force decides to upset the delicate balance of disparate people, leading to possible calamity or to triumph. The lives of the families of Mars are beset on all sides by a much more powerful foe, who wishes for total hegemonic domination of the planet.
This book is great if you like underdog stories of smart, competent people rising to the occasion and overcoming a seemingly unstoppable enemy.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Captivating military science-fiction.
While there were to passages, that dragged out some technical expertise, they weren't too long and couldn't distract from the great pacing of the rest of the rest of the book.
It started with a lot of characters, but it didn't devolve into too many more, so you could easily follow the action and the characters after that.
While there were to passages, that dragged out some technical expertise, they weren't too long and couldn't distract from the great pacing of the rest of the rest of the book.
It started with a lot of characters, but it didn't devolve into too many more, so you could easily follow the action and the characters after that.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews